A lot of businesses involve visiting people's homes or workplaces. For all of us, this can be a dubious time. In the last week I have had two tradespeople visit our office. The first was checking the air-conditioning and the second installed a new telephone extension. Both parties made a mess, leaving grubby fingerprints on the walls around the areas where they were working, and they disappeared for hours at a time, leaving their tools and ladders set up in prime places such as our company boardroom. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I now have a negative impression of both of these organizations. They both did an adequate job, but they were messy and, I feel, inconsiderate of the fact that we run a business.
I have a friend who runs a filtered water company. He installs water cooler machines at hundreds of businesses every year - everything from mechanics' workshops to hospitals. He makes a point not only of booking in a time to install the machines, but also of taking his own cleaning materials so as to ensure that the mess is kept to a minimum and is cleaned up immediately. He also visits regularly those of his customers whose business is hard on the machines. For example, he has one machine in a tyre fitter's workshop, so it gets covered in dirty marks from the staff. He pops in regularly to clean the machine so that it sparkles. His philosophy is that a dirty machine reflects more on him than on the business where it has been installed. As a result, he does very well. This is an excellent form of customer service that directly benefits him and strengthens his long-term relationship with all of his customers.
Another example of this suggestion, and one that most of us can relate to, is getting your car back from the mechanic's workshop and it's covered in oily finger marks, or there are shoe prints on the mats and a general grubbiness that perhaps wasn't there when the car was dropped off. Those workshops that are aware of this and go to great lengths to ensure that the car is cleaner when it leaves than when it arrived, shine in the area of customer service. I use a workshop now that washes and vacuums the car free of charge after every service. I know that I am paying for this service indirectly, but I believe that the customer satisfaction level is much higher than the alternative of saving a few dollars and having the car returned grubby.
One company that has developed a very good reputation in this area installs burglar alarms. The installers are all issued with mats to put on the floor before they do any work, and they have portable vacuum cleaners to thoroughly clean their work area before they leave. A few minutes' extra work makes for a much happier customer.